Buzzy's work: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

I was over at my parents house for Easter and I ran across this painting that I did a few years ago. I completely forgot about it. It was for an assignment in a beginning painting class at SDSU. If I properly recall, this would be my first oil painting. I wasn't even aware of tiki and oceanic art at the time. The instructor told us she wanted to observe our technique and pointed to a pile of National Geographics and said that we had to pick our source from them. After she shot down my first 5-6 proposals, she "let" me do this one. The original picture had a row of statues in it and I really wanted to do all of them in a descending perspective, but she told me to just concentrate on one figure and keep the composition simple. I learned in college art classes that if you do your work exactly like the teacher suggests, you will be rewarded with an "A". This was back when I thought a high GPA might help me later on at some point in life. So far it hasn't. Why do they place so much emphasis on it then?
This painting was done with oil on stretched canvas and measures 2'x3'. I think I might make a bamboo frame for it out of some giant bamboo that the tree service recently provided for me. Anyone out there ever make a bamboo frame? I'd like advice if you have it, please.

Moving right along with the current project. It should be done tonight or tomorrow...
Here's yesterday's progress


If you guys don't hear from me for a couple days, don't worry, I'm fine. The computer that I've been so graciously loaned this week needs to go back to its owner now, so I'll check in when I can. Buzzy out...but not for long.

Well Buzzy, You are doing a darned good job., but zi know this carver goes by Gary and he could help you out a lot. He actually taught BigBenzart most all of what HE knows which werent very much. It took some time casue he said thar bzart fella were kind of slo and had a hard time So if this G fella helpewd this Benzart kid, then he can help you, don't chathink?? I'll introduce you guyz later.SOK??

wow slick work ya got there Buzzy! I'm enjoying your style. I also liked that oil of yours, yeah you should go back and shove some tikis into that teachers face. See what she says then.

BUzzy, while you are "Computerless" for a couple days, finish your carving. than come over and finish your story we're getting Antsy, wanna see it turn out good.

Other than some sanding and a lot more sanding, this one was finished yesterday.

It took me three tries to get the chest down far enough so that it looked reasonable. For this, I used a chainsaw and sanded away the deepest blade marks. It will look fine after finish sanding.

I rough cut the body with a chainsaw. Then I got it closer with a 2" flat chisel. I finally went over it with a manual hand planer?(cheese grader looking tool with handles on both ends for teeter totter shaving of the corners down to graceful curves-I don't know the actual name)I wanted to make sure that when I looked at it straight on, I could see the indentations on each side where the back of the knee is. the planer worked perfect for this and I was quite pleased with the results.

I spent a good deal of time after I got the body to look right finishing up the face and the mouth. I bought a new set of flexcut gouges a couple weeks back and they made all the difference in making the details as well as helping with the material removal in the back of the mouth. Any imperfections left at this point will be removed or fixed during my final sanding. My dremel tool will come in handy for doing this.

I can't wait to stain it and see how it finally turns out. It's always an adventure and I'm almost done with this one...
NEXT!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-04-19 00:54 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-04-19 02:19 ]

After finishing the last piece, I spent the evening fine tuning a couple things that were waiting to be completed before I finish sanded them. These pieces were done before I had purchased a set of gouges and there were a couple details that I couldn't do without the new tools. I left the carvings in limbo until last night, and now they are only a sanding and staining away from being completely done. I usually wait until I get about 3-5 finished pieces before I sand. Then I go on a 2-3 day non-stop frenzy of sanding and staining until all are done. Usually, I would stop right now and start sanding because I have 6 pieces finished. But this time I think I'm going to make three more before I sand them. Right now I have three logs left out of my "old stock." These last three are several months old(5-6? since the tree was cut down) and are so far the driest logs I've used since the first one I ever carved. I really like them about this age. Ideally, I would use them in the 3-5 month range because they cut just a little bit easier. But these three logs are the last that I have that are stripped and ready to go. All my other logs are only about two months old. I figure since these are at least a month away from being ideal, I'll just power through the last three in the next week or so, sand and stain everything in about a week of nights and then it will be serious log prep time for about a week. But for now, I'll just pull my focus back to my next project.

Once again, this one starts on a Mexican fan palm, 5'4" tall and 8 1/2" in diameter. I first sketched it out with chalk to get a general sense of where everything should be. I use chalk because it's easy to wipe off quickly and it contrasts with my final lines, which are done in pencil, which will cut down on the confusion when I'm doing my final layout. If the preceding was confusing to you, don't go back and try to reread it, just look at the pictures...

Here is the whole body chalked

After I chalk it out, I move it inside the house and sit down and look at it for a long time. I'll go away from it a couple times and then come back to it, each time trying to find problems in the composition and what can be improved from my initial rough layout.
This is the face after final adjustments, done in pencil. You can see how close my initial freehand sketch is to the final one pretty well in this picture.

I draw the body after I carve the face fully. This is in case there are any sudden surprises with the log after I cut into it. I don't want to lose the time drawing out the body if the log has a problem and I have to end up throwing it away or scaling back my ambitions. It has never happened to me yet, but when it does, I am going to say, "I'm glad that I didn't waste my time drawing the whole body" and I will not be as mad as I would have if I did. Then it would all be worth it and make perfect sense.
I will start carving it tomorrow, and as always, will keep all of you well informed of my progress...

Nice step-by-step procedure Buzzy and on top of all that, the Tiki Looks Great. an't wait to see this one unfold. I like your idea about getting a bunch and sanding them all til it's done.. Get the dirty work put off until the last minute and do them all while you are covered with log dandruff. You may be onto something.

I bought a couple new tools today: A stubai 1/2" 60 degree tool and a stubai 1/8" deep veiner. These new tools, along with a recently purchased flexcut long handled six piece starter set were what I used for today's work. I managed to get in a few hours of carving before sunset and was happy with the progress so far.
Here are the photos:

I managed to get in a couple more hours on my current project this evening.
Here are some dramatic, shadowy photos of the progress:


I'd like to take the time to thank everyone for being so supportive of my efforts. I promise that tomorrow I will answer all who have written to me that I have not answered or thanked directly in the last few days. I'm sorry that I've neglected doing so yet. I'd do it now but it has been a very long day...Talk to you all soon and keep carving!

I think you are past the white belt carver, man.

And I wouldn't like the chainsaw or Franklin.

Ask the Crow about him.

Reduced to a Sparrow.

Sorry to get off subject .
It's always great to see new carvers and tikis in here.
Keep posting.

Sunset. This means another day is coming to a close.
Here are some shots of today's work:

close ups:

I'll check back in later tonight; I just wanted to stop by for a second and say "Hey!" to you all.

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-04-20 19:32 ]

Franklin is a bad dude, but the Snowman (Monson) is THE man!

Nice job Buzzy. You have covered a lot of ground in a very short time. Just be careful, don't push it, and rememeber not to carve tired - that's when really bad stuff can happen (not only to your carving, but to you as well). Respect the saw and it will respect you.

Carve safe,

Gman

As promised, I'm taking this time to respond to all who have taken interest enough in my work to contact me. First, I would like to thank who have contributed to the tools thread. I have found this to be most helpful to me in many different ways. If you are a carver and have not checked that thread, I highly recommend it.
Now for other ramblings and responses:
GMAN: Monson is a force to be reckoned with, that's for sure. He did lose to Liddell back in 2000(UFC 29). He's better and stronger now but I just do not see him being champion anytime soon. Too much talent out there...I do respect the saw, believe me, I do! Today's work, as tired as I was when I did it, fortunately required no sawing today. While we're talking about this, is that safety long john looking thing expensive? Also, does it deflect the blade or shed fibers to clog and stop it? It might be worth looking into ...
Alientiki: As far as I'm concerned, the UFC is NEVER off topic!! I will keep posting about tikis too, as long we're all still here. But in the meantime, there were about three seconds in Franklin-Louiseau fight where I thought that Loiseau was going to shock the world after he stunned Franklin. But then Franklin got up and, well you know...
Benzart: I think that you never tried sanding several pieces at the same time because you actually, unlike myself, sell your stuff. If I had customer waiting for a piece, I'd probably sand that sucker up while I was carving it just to get check in hand as soon as possible. On the serious side, I also let them accumulate over time to further dry. I'm always surprised when I get deep into some logs that are quite old and they are very wet inside. I'd like them to be dry as possible when I finally seal them. I'm still experimenting with ideal times to start each step in the process. There's always something else to worry about, it seems. Also, I have a Hard Arkansas abrasive stone that I use to sharpen my flat chisels. Should I be using this on my long handled gouges? They look like yours from the tools thread-the ones with the mirror shine that you referenced. Or should I get something better? And if it's not too much trouble, what technique should I use to sharpen them(Side, angle, frequency, etc.) Thanks in advance, again.
Pockytiki: She would dismiss my tiki work because they don't come from Classic Western Civilization traditions. She wanted thick paint and heavy, socially controversial subject matter only. I ended up with an A in her class because I went to her art exhibit and started painting just like she did-Sloppy with about $35 in paint o the canvas.
Benzart: Yes, I would like to meet Gary. Tell me more...
Johnny P: I read the safety thread after my accident. If I knew about it back then, I'd have taken some pictures to share (and scare)
Mctiki: Thanks, it's always nice to hear complements...
TikiG: Where you been? Oh yeah, probably working on that scavenger hunt. Did you find the influence for #13 yet. You should start on that one. I think it might be the easiest to find. His stuff is all over this site...
Well, I think that catches me up for now. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Buzzy,

The chaps I wear are designed to bind the saw and stop the chain from turning. I believe they are made of many layers of Kevlar. Go to www.loghomestore and see what their wrap around chaps are going for - I think they were like 80 bucks? While you are there man, getcha a hardhat with a face screen and ear protection. A hat like that might have protected you from that last attack. Find some steel toed shoes also. It's all very inexpensive gear when you compare it to emergency room bills and plastic surgery..... Good luck.

-Gman

UFC and Tkis, now I might post here on your thread all the time.

I watched Quinton "Rampage" Jackson put the beat down of Liddell so you never know with these guys. So who do you like UFC 60, Gracie or hughes? It will be epic I'm sure.

I don't want to answer for Benzart, but A good honing guide makes short work of sharpening.

Some would argue to do it by hand (if you know how) will give a better edge. I use a guide.
Heres a good resource. http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/index.html

It sounds like your getting a nice edge already.
Good luck.

The Story of Tiki #14 or more appropriately titled "Buzzy Fights Back: The Story of How Buzzy is Motivated in His Carving by The UFC.(In this chapter, I try to justify the continuance of the mentioning of the UFC on my thread by rhetorically providing examples of how the UFC and carving are inextricably entwined with one another within my addled brain. I'll show a bunch of pictures too, so if you do not care about the UFC, scroll down until you see a picture of three logs. By this point in the chapter, I will have shifted from fighting to carving. Everyone else, read on!

Last Saturday, Heavyweight Tim Sylvia beat Andrei Arlovski for the title. The last time these two met, Sylvia lasted less than a minute. After avenging his previous loss, he immediately called for a rubber match between the two, and then he called out former champion Frank Mir. Had Mir not recently lost to Cruz, he definitely would have faced Sylvia next. After Sylvia ruins Monson(my prediction) hopefully Mir will have beaten anyone, so that Sylvia-Mir 2 becomes a reality. Sylvia's desire to overcome his previous defeats caused me some further reflection on this matter. I think back to other great champions and their motivations. After Light Heavyweight Chuck Liddell beat Randy Couture in their second fight, he immediately called out Rampage Jackson. Rampage is the only fighter to have beaten Liddell and not had him return the favor later on.(on Rampage's website, he said he's signing on with the UFC cause that's where the $ is. $ and Liddell)Liddell wanted to remove the only black mark on his record after avenging his only other losses to Horn and Couture. Welterweight champion Matt Hughes was disappointed recently when George St Pierre beat BJ Penn. He would have rather faced Penn, he said, because he already beat GSP and had nothing to prove. His main concern was beating someone who had previously beaten him. All these champs, the best in the business, want to right their previous mistakes. They draw upon it for motivation and are inspired to better themselves. Going into each loss, I'm sure that they believed fully that they would win. They would have to. At that level you have to think that you are the best, or at least capable of being the best, to ever have a shot at actually being the best. I never heard a champion say before a fight, " I'm actually not ready for tonight and I don't like my chances, but I'm gonna go out there and hopefully get lucky and somehow win."
Some day I want to be a champion. A champion carver. Right now I'm working my way up through the circuit. I've already had a couple of losses early on, but I've learned from them, become better from them, and have moved beyond them. Well, actually, there was one fight that I previously lost and want a rematch. I feel like tiki #5 was a battle in which I lost. It did not turn out the way I wanted it to and I now wanted to make it right. To one day become a champion, I must do this now.
Tiki #5 was done on a bad log and it was the first time in my life that I had ever even touched a chisel before. I had no technique or instruction at all. I just hacked into it. Looking at it, I noticed several big mistakes that I couldn't believe I did not notice while in the process of making it. The most obvious error was this huge gap in the teeth where I measured incorrectly. If it isn't drawn right, it will not be carved right. You do not become the champ by luck; you need to work, hard, to become the champ. Here is my work.
It started with a Mexican Fan Palm, 2’2” tall, 5 1/2” in diameter.
I used the one in the middle

Here it is drawn out. I changed the teeth on this one because I liked the bigger tooth look

Details of how well I draw it out before carving:

I carved this one in the garage, at night. Here it is I after one layer of removal. The line carved below the eye will show the highest point of the cheek and face.

I taper it down by hand with a chisel from this point to the mouth

I was still carving the whole piece shallow first, top to bottom.

Then I would go back and redo the whole thing deeper

Here are a couple close ups of the grain of the wood.

I use the 1” flat chisel and scrape it by hand this smooth

It takes very little sanding to get this surface perfectly smooth

I did the eyes last. Here it is close to being done

This looks good at this point. The planer lines and any other flaws will be taken care of when I sand it.

I find that it is easier to remove these last fibers with a sander when it is drier. If I take them out now, the sander would clog with damp material. Or trying to remove them with a blade may leave a scratch that you will have to sand out later anyway .I do not have a problem leaving them a little rough like this. It will look fine after sanding;it just looks rough now

Sanding will fix all these tool marks quickly and easily later on

Finally, here it is a few weeks later, sanded and stained

I think I improved this one on this attempt a great deal from my first attempt. I was happy after it was done because it looked so much cleaner and better balanced than my first try. This was my first visible evidence of how much better I had become since then. Just wait until the rubber match to follow(tiki #29). Hint: I win again!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-04-21 16:14 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-04-21 16:22 ]

Another sunset, another set of pictures...

I spent a couple hours working on the legs and lower half today.

More to do tonight. I'll check in later...

I spent another few hours refining it last night. I mainly used a 2" flat chisel and a hand planer to soften the edges. The carving and shaping part is only a few hours away from being finished. I will probably be able to finish it this afternoon. The next step will be to place ornamental designs all over the chest, chin, and crown.

the back still needs some work

Finally finished this guy. I'm going to wait until after sanding(and more research)to add the fine details.

Here it is in the sanding line

here's my next project, a 5'4" mexican fan palm. It will be a Kane based work. I made one similar to it last month(third from left above)I am going to use the same design for the headress but add another 16" to it and and make it much more complex.

here is the old one with the new one behind it. I already cut out the top in the pattern of an X.

like this

I worked on it last night and this is how it is now

more later...I need to get to work!

Buzzy...you are a carver on steroids...i dont know how you do so many, but it sure is fun to see all the styles you are coming up with. Wish I had your energy. Keep it up, were watching.

In progress, using a 60 degree gouge and a 2" wide flat chisel

I am taking a break right now to watch UFC Unleashed. It features several old matches with Royce Gracie. Watching these fights, I cannot help but think how bad Matt Hughes is going to whip him next month. I kind of feel sorry for him. He should have pulled a Jim Brown and retired on top. After I watch him struggle to beat Kimo, I will get back to this...
front

back

side

Buzzy, I think you need medical attention, you have something wrong, you're stuck in tiki High gear and can't get out. Happened to me once and I nearly died before they pried the chainsaw out of my hands. Seriously, you are creating some awesome tikis and I Don't think you should slow down. Hang on and Let 'er rip.

Your making the rest of us look bad. Are you carving in your sleep too? Amazing work and your thread is fun to read.

I agree you are a very interesting man and your work is nice and it is fun to watch the transition. Keep it up. I know I want to check out your work every time you post them here.

Here is last night's progress. This is a lot of repetitive work, but it's starting to get where it needs to be...


I like to thank all who have commented recently. I'll get to all of you soon, but for now, back to work...

I stopped working on the crown until the body is done. I do not want the top to be any more delicate than it already is. I just rough cut the chest, chin, mouth, and feet with a chainsaw. Everything else needs to be done by hand. It's slower, but a mistake would be too costly at this point.More later, as usual...

Here are my new sunset tiki progress photos:

I am currently working on the face

these windows were a pain to do but the results made the work worth it

It finally happened. After three days of seemingly non stop carving, I crashed and burned. I was carving earlier today and completely ran out of gas. When I felt like I was going to fall asleep with a mallet and chisel in my hand, I knew I had to take a break and rest. I slept for for several hours straight for the first time in days. That messed up my already messed up sleep schedule. At least I have something to do tonight...

the one I'm working on is on the left


mostly finished as far as the body is concerned. Now back to the embellishments on the crown...sleep well, I'll let you know if anything exciting happens.

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-04-27 01:33 ]

Ahm!!...we would like you to sleep well dear. But keep us posted no matter what.

Worked all night...Here's where I left it


if all goes well, I should finish this afternoon

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2006-05-02 23:22 ]

more pictures in better light

Lake Surfer:
Answers(some are true, some aren't):
Job? Yes. Right now it is super slow. I'm on call, so to speak, and the phone isn't ringing. Once it does start though, it seems to never stop. I might as well take advantage of this time while I have it.
Rush? No rush. I have to do something with my time, might as well be this. There is nothing on tv these days anyway. I also have chronic insomnia. I used to just lay there all night. Now I carve all night. Carving solved my insomnia problem, now I just have to work on my not sleeping problem.
Goal? I just like to make them. If I sell them-cool. If not, I have one of the best Tiki collections I ever seen-and I made them all! I've never tried to sell any of them. Personally, I cannot believe what people charge for these things. I also cannot believe there are people who would actually pay that. One born every minute, they just don't happen by that frequently.
Saturated? I know. I wanted to be a mailman, but I did some research and it seems every neighborhood has at least one. Too much competition so I changed my mind. Then I wanted to be a teacher. There's one of those in every single classroom, surprisingly. I'm a good cook, I wanted to open a restaurant, but there is a McDonalds right down the block...Talking about saturation, don't even get me started on getting into the real estate industry.
Discouraged? Why did you have to bring this up then? You ruined my life! I quit! All I wanted to ever do was have fun and challenge myself, now you have to bring this up. Now I'm so depressed I think I'll sleep all the time instead of carving. And things were going so well for me lately...

Help me TCers before it's too late!
Does anyone out there know of a place I can go and be the only tiki carver around? If you find one, let me know, I'd like to start this again where the environment is more suitable to a monopolistic enterprise rather than competitive one. I would hate to have to move, but I do not think I can deal with competition right now. I might have to make quality pieces that the buyer would actually seek out and be proud to own. That's way too hard though. I just want to slap something out and sell it to some sucker who doesn't have any choice, because I am the only choice available. If my customer doesn't like my offerings, then he/she can move to the big city where saturation of the market results in more choices...

Hey Buzzy, last time I looked YOU were the Only tiki carver in Your Garage, so you have a Monopoly there. I think I can see where the "Buzzy" name came from and it would seem that you came by it Honestly. Ahh to be young again. I wish I had Half the energy I wasted when I was younger...Keep up the great work, the last 2 you are doing are really Fantastic. don't stop and Don't slow down. You will have plenty time to rest and sleep when you get older. Do it Do it Do it NOW!!

Buzzy,

Take a short break and watch Spike TV. Riggs is on the show tonight! I know you need a little UFC fix! Me too! I would give up carving in a minute if I could do it all again, get rid of my injuries/plates/ screws/pins and implant/transplants, and fight in the Pride or UFC. My friend ED fights in Pride. I think he's pushing for a UFC PPV fight. He's been training in Brazil and just came back after having some plates removed from his leg. I need to give him a call.......

This last guy you are working on is really cool. I like his look. Nice stuff!

-Gman

Buzzy
Your tikis...especially the last one...is (are) great. Being the only tiki carver in an area isn't
all it might be cracked up to be...take that from the only tiki carver in northern Wisconsin!
Love what you do...do what you love...with a little luck it will all work out! I don't envy you
in your competitive enrironment, however! Keep working.

Buzzy keep on carving it is better than not sleeping all night. And when you don't have any space left let me know I can store a few of your pieces in my yard for you. :wink: :wink: :wink:

Hey, whatever floats your boat.

displacement

"Hey", I use to be a "Mailman"!

You say your looking for a place where you can be the only tiki carver around huh? How about Antartica? Don't think you would have much competition there....

Where are you?

Wow, looks like it was busy around here for a while I went computer down. I've been having problems with my free wireless signal that I borrow from the neighbor the last couple of days. I did a couple of posts on thursday night and they were not able to be transferred to this site and were lost forever. Oh well. It was only a couple hours lost. On Friday, I cleaned out my garage and turned it into the ultimate sanding/staining station. I managed to clear an indoor work space that runs about 7'x12'. Plenty of room. I was going to carve my last chisel ready log before I stained all my stuff, but I was all fired up on my workstation and jumped right into sanding them all. So far I have completed 4 of the 8 that need to be finished. The light in the garage is poor for pictures so I'll get some first thing in the morning. Now on a more personal note...
Benzart-As always YOU RULE! Thanks for the continuing comments and correspondence, not just on my thread, but throughout this site.
GMAN: Riggs eh? Did you ever see him fight when he weighed 300lbs? I'd like to see some old footage of him at that weight. He's fighting Mike Quick at the next UFC. I also heard he got knocked out by Nick Diaz in the hospital after their last fight. I've watched that fight over and over and still cannot see how Diaz lost. Too bad they were not filming at the hospital, sounded like there was a clearer result there. If I had to guess by looks, I'd say you're a Muy Thai type guy. Am I right?
Congatiki: My great grandparents were from Sheboygen(sp). I remember them bringing summer sausage out here for Xmas. Thanks to you too, for the encouragement, and keep warm out there
Hiltiki: You rule too! Thanks for your comments and support also.
Tiki G: Antarctica- It's definitely a possibility. The no competition part would be cool, but business might be slow in the off season. Do any cruise lines go there yet? On second thought, with global warming and all, I should establish myself there right now. It will be the new tropics in no time. Fire up the SUVs folks, I'm going to Antarctica!
OK- more later, I just wanted to check in and tell you guys how much I missed you all while I still have a signal

I tapered all the rectangles into trapezoids on my latest. All 157 of them. It pretty much took all day. I kept asking myself if doing all these extra embellishments were worth it while I was working on it. I didn't have an answer for myself until I was done. After I walked away from it and came back and looked at it for the first time, I decided it was worth all the extra work. It is now awaiting sanding. Here are pictures I took right before finishing the carving part of this one:



It was a lot of carving doing these details and it was essentially doing the same task over and over again. Not the most exciting day, but some are like that.

I need to catch up with my saga, so here is the story of Tiki #15, started in Jan 06.

It was a single comment. On a thread. Somewhere here. If I would have missed it, who knows how my development would have been altered. I just heard the right thing at the right time. I do not remember who said it to whom, but the gist of it was my motivation for the next several pieces of work. Someone mentioned to someone, which I just happened upon and read at complete random, that his work was cool because he did whole bodies, and no one did whole bodies anymore, only faces. I didn't bother to try to validate his claims, it really didn't matter if it was true or not. What did matter was that it planted the seed in my head to work on full bodies to see if I could do them. I had done only 3-4 whole bodies at this point and none were complex at all. I was still trapped in only carving on the front half of the log or making those bodies that are less than anatomically realistic and more of a representational depiction of a body. In other words, I felt like I needed to step up my body work a little bit.
I did not try anything too complex for this attempt. I just wanted to kind of work things out by going for it and seeing what I could learn and what I would have to improve upon in the future. I'm kind of laughing upon reflection of this one because I intended to do a whole body instead of just a head, and when I look at it, I notice that it is 28 inches tall, and 21 inches of it are the head, with seven inches left for the body. At least I tried though.
This one was done on a Mexican fan palm. The tree was very tall and old and the tree service brought me the whole tree. This piece was from the bottom portion and was very hard and dense. The fibers were extremely fine and firm and they had a beautiful orangish tint to them. Most of the bottom of the tree was like this. About half way up the tree, the logs started splitting down the center. Every log past a certain point up the tree was like this. My tree removal expert informed me that perhaps the log split when it fell. That made sense to me. If the tree was cut down in one shot, it might have bent and split under its own strain of weight. The tree service now cuts down my trees in sections and lowers them with rope so this will not happen again. A good 20 feet of tree got turned into stain and tool "testor" logs from that one.
Now for the visual aid part with all the pictures.
It started with a 28" log, 8 1/2" in diameter. It's the one on the right:

Drawn out

the three lines guide the mouth. The top and bottom line show the mouth boundaries while the center line is used for chainsaw reference. I cut exactly to this line with the saw and finish it to proper depth by hand, later

here it is after just starting

It was January, so it got dark at 4:30, and I moved it inside and deepened it a little

here it is after starting the crown details

little more work. I was still using only flat chisels at this time and did not know how much easier it would have been to do with a nice set of gouges

here it is when I thought it was done

I thought that the details detracted from the face and made the piece too convoluted. After looking at it for a couple weeks and never being happy with it, I removed the crown detailing. It immediately improved the piece and drew the viewer's eye back to the face, rather than the messy crown. Here it is stained:

Even though I did the whole body on this one, it was not really the result that I had in mind when I started it. I wanted a longer and more precise body. I guess that I'll have to leave myself more room next time. This one did, however, provide me another learning experience. The more I know and learn, the easier this gets.
What I learned on this one:

1. You can carve it too much and mess it up
2. You can "uncarve" something
3. It's never too late to change your mind
4. 7" isn't enough room for a whole body
5. Sometimes simple and plain works for a design

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-01 13:56 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-01 14:01 ]

More excellent workm from Buzzy, I really Love your Attitude and committment to your carvings, Unbeatable. Just keep up the great work and don't stop the narrations. Thanx.

I'm going to post these just a couple at a time because my wireless is still on again off again:
Four more finished